Twisted Nerve
by Jack inthe Box
Summary: There are some things which make a spasm thread its way through his back, a gleeful arching of the spine in euphoria, which cannot be replicated enough to dust over the lethargy of staying alive. This, Jim thinks as he raises himself onto his toes and closes his eyes gratefully, is one of those things. [character death warning]


Written in Senior Composition class in Senior year of high school. The assignment was a six page? fiction story, which only meant secret **Sherlock **AU. Thus why John is never called 'Watson' or Sherlock called anything but 'The Virgin' or 'He'.

**Suggested reading music -** 'Twisted Nerve' by Bernard Herrmann.

* * *

Only a certain amount of boredom could be handled at a time.

. Within two minutes, he sets out of the fast food chain. He walks with a steady gait, shined leather shoes taking hops over the pavement. People glance at him, stares lasting seconds. His coat flutters in the London breeze, the stench of a society forgetting deodorant. Normally his nose would be wrinkled in mild distaste, but today is a good day. The best sort of day. The stale odour permeating through the Burger King bag stood as a constant reminder of the remaining ten minutes. It's a tad heavier with the extra spicy chicken crisp, a sandwich he didn't even particularly enjoy of theirs, but perhaps his friend will. His grip tightens.  
. Sometimes he just couldn't believe his luck! Three years _He_ had been gone, leaving His little dear alone and collapsing on the inside. The Virgin was so daft, so careless! Rounding a corner, his eyes roll at the imagery he'd left behind a half an hour ago. Cinnabar red staining though sterile white, botchily bruised skin as ugly as dropped produce left on the floor of a supermarket. What would He think when He returned? The man's mouth nearly curved into a smile, but it was there – slight, knowing and lightly entertained.  
. Another hop-scotch step over a curb. A woman with a child shoots him a look, a curled sneer of 'how old are you?'. He smiles back in kind, the special sort of upward lilt of lips including teeth. _'Don't mind me, honey,'_ he sings out in his mind, glancing up toward the large brick building a block away. The contents in the bag rustle; he double-steps up the few stairs to the door and stops a moment to admire the sheer splendour of it all. There are some things which make a spasm thread its way through his back, a gleeful arching of the spine in euphoria, which cannot be replicated enough to dust over the lethargy of staying alive.

This, Jim thinks as he raises himself onto his toes and closes his eyes gratefully, is one of those things.

* * *

. "All I want, baby, is to be friends with you~" he sings during their first visit, twirling a chair out in front of him backwards. He settles into it, resting forearms onto the plastic back, his chin upon his wrist. "I don't want to meet your kin, make you spin or do you in, or select you, _dissect_ you.."

. John provides very little response. Jim's frown stretches, strenuous and adding superfluous wrinkles upon his chin and beside his lips. The steady beep of the machine is the solo reply. His brow crinkles dramatically as he appears to ponder over something. Naturally, he expects this. Oh, but how incredibly rude to react this way, to be saved from the most devastating pain, and proceed to gaily skip beyond gratitude and feign sleep.

. "Oh Johnnyboy, I'm definitely hurt now," he sighs and disentangles his limbs from the chair, opening the bag and spreading out the three wrapped sandwiches and a large order of chicken tenders on the bed. The man before him is awake, though his closed eyelids and steady breathing suggest anything else. "I go through all the trouble of giving you an exceptionally fashionable vest – far better than those grandmother jumpers you must find in yard sale bins –, and your master cruelly throws it on the floor. Now I save you, buy you a sandwich, and.." he picks up a chicken piece, "You ignore _me_. I'll give you the suggestion that it stops. Weeeell, unless you want to lose a finger. Maybe three. Three fingers for three years."

. The man upon the bed stirs slowly, still strung along in his failed rouse. He watches the dark blue eyes focus warily upon him. Dilated pupils, parted and dried lips, half-lidded gaze. Jim laughs, although he's apparently the only one to find it humourous. All smiles now. He busies himself with his Whopper, careful eating but noisy chewing. Large dark eyes trained solely on his companion, he gestures with his free hand, casual and wasteful in grace. _'Speak,'_ he means, _'Speak and Daddy will answer'_.  
. John complies. A barrage of questions, buttered tactfully with expletives he isn't entirely sure he cares for. Mundane questions: 'Why am I here?' and 'What the hell do you want?'. Nothing exciting, nothing probing – no wondering why John has been summoned when He is dead, when the bond between hound and owner is expected to be broken. But he is a loyal dog, that Johnnyboy. So loyal! So [**_nauseating_**] touching. Jim listens though, because he hopes for more. He hopes to know what attracted The Virgin to His pet. The words keep coming from John's mouth, tedious and forceful, military. He is trained, knowing the harshness of the world to those who go on living above ground and return six feet under in a walking coffin. His threats, however, aren't that impressive to Jim. The smile persists. It's a little hollower than previously. To think he spent three men to gather this bundle of broken twigs and sinew and blood – and one of them had even managed to get killed by the silly man, the very same one who bought three packets of pills to kill himself the next night.

. "He gets bored of things easily, you know," Jim starts once his sandwiches are finished and is now idly inspecting the chicken nugget crowns before consuming them in a childishly slow manner. "I hope your loyalty pays off. I really do. If it doesn't, it'll only be me and you. You and me." A sound of laughter, and it appears as if it is coming from Jim. He's not lit with amusement, though. Rather, there is a decided lack of it in the deep lines dug out upon his face. "And I can pull the plug any moment. I don't think I need to explain what that means, doctor. I can pull out the syringe keeping you nice and pain free if you're not a well-behaved puppy for me, too."

. Before he gets up and excuses himself, before he lets the heavy metal door slam behind him with a cavernous thud, Jim admires the way John cannot prescind his mind from the confusion inside it to snap a witty line back. Mostly he admires the defeated slump already germinating a struggling body, the dried dribble of blood flaked upon the corner of John's lip. The best way to teach a dog new tricks, he believes, is to slice out and cut off every old part of it. If it means the dog just bleeds to death, well.. time to get a new dog.

* * *

. Jim either has a bit of a crick in his neck or that last minute head cock was an aversion to the proposed topic of the old woman beside him. He is not pleased by his new company, but responds jovially back to the female beside him. It's a careful steering of the conversation, leading her to elaborate on what she forgot at the store, how necessary those items are. She thanks him for the fun and waddles away, down the winding park path. The black-haired man tilts his head back in relief, tugging his coat closer before stretching out his legs.

. The sound of buskers working to make a cheap pound flit from somewhere behind him, cheap and lousy. The unpleasant smell of mowed grass causes him to exhale through his nose harshly. The action moves him into a sitting slouch, hands in his pockets to over-express how casual he is acting. Twittering birds above him soothe his prematurely cut nerves; he moves his fingers away from tracing the outline of the handgun held in a holster against his right hip. Something digs inside his mind today, rash and grinding against misfired synapses.

. Nearly a month had passed since John came to permanently visit against his will. The man had barely softened, resisting at every opportunity, despite what it cost him. But John listens, though he may not want to. John will meet his gaze and even sling back comments that have Jim whistling in awe. John, he thinks, is a good man. A good, unbearably heavy-headed man who must die.  
. It takes time to ensure John cannot escape, and time means money for the git who cleans up all the blood. The Virgin, however, has not come to visit, despite the pepper trail Jim leaves for Him. The man does not expect Him to come soon; rather, he knows The Virgin will take His time trying to click everything together. There's little to grasp at though, and Jim is getting tired. But Jim wouldn't bother if He promised disappointment, boredom. It is the only comforting thought he can cling to now as his mind swims laps in a haze of indifference. Even the few birds that round about during his arrival cannot smooth out the slump beginning to shovel dirt over his coffin. He works at it regardless, prodding. Prying.

. Pulling a hand out of his pocket, he produces a small bag of bird food and begins his daily ritual of pinching food with three fingers – thumb, pointer, middle – and tossing it to the hungry pigeons. They bounce on the pavement, pecking at the seeds, and glance up at him expectantly. Jim pretends they can identify and trust him for his subservience. This is supposed to be the only time when he can feel relaxed, can _be_relaxed, without having to worry about his clients contacting him or someone accidentally recognising him.  
. Today is not a good day, and he considers the consequences of simply blowing his brains out at this exact second. The leaves hang heavy in the trees. A jogger runs by, frightening away the birds, and he listens to the weighty footsteps dim and vanish. A heaviness settles inside of him, an emotion swelling deep within his stomach, squeezing his lungs for space.  
. Jim rocks forward onto the edge of the bench, the varnished wood uncomfortably pressing into his upper thighs. He closes his eyes and focuses, winding his fingers into his slicked back hair. Blood thickens in his veins, the flow somehow tranquil against his own mind. His heartbeat thrums loudly in his chest, knocking against its meaty surroundings. The handgun is bulky against the thin material of his suit pants; emotions profusely pressing against the front of his skull.  
. Careful and unobtrusive, something whispers against his heart and Jim sneers at the side-walk beneath his feet, eyes opening, red-rimmed. His mouth is dry, tasting of the acrid after-taste of fast food jammed in the corners of his teeth. He works to clear his throat, but a gross noise escapes instead. Children playing near him stare curiously.  
. It is the eerie sensation of coming home to a stranger's house and lying in an unfamiliar bed. Loss enters into his mind, shaking his fingers, slow but certain, unstoppable. The layer of ice lodged between his diaphragm suddenly cracks, splitting apart his insides in a frightening and painful episode. He could feel each particle of air brush against his skin, scraping away at his sense of self.

. "I can't –" he manages, voice bloated with a rawness never there before. Jim works to collect himself as he pulls up his head, eyes peeking between his fingers for any reflection of honesty. A reticent solitude gives his shoulders an inward pull, as though he were bracing for a jarring gust of wind. He licks his lips, dragging his fingernails along the side of his face before his hands fall limply upon his lap. He swallows and works the words in his mouth as though they are gum, gnashing them and trying to extract the full flavour. When his mouth opens again, a billow of exhausted misery escapes. Crooked laughter oozes out of his mouth like vomit, dribbles his chin. It takes everything he does not have to clench his teeth shut and return to the perfunctory state he had before.  
_'Long live the King.'_

. The scalpel pauses along John's ring finger, airily brushing over the skin beneath. It barely splits the complicated weave of flesh beneath. Jim hums to himself, though he is focused on the hitches and releases of breath from the man before him. The blade catches the gleam of the lowered light above the two of them and he pauses. He raises his head in a dramatic manner, measured ticks up, his eyebrows pulled aloft, sloped like a cat's arched back. He stills long enough to let John's eyes focus on him before he pulls his lips back, ugly and reptilian and disturbing, a smile.

"I can do it to you gently, I can do it with an animal's grace. I can do it with precision, I can do it with gourmet taste.. but either way, either way, Johnny, I want to kill you, I want to blow you.." He sings as he moves the instrument again, adding the barest amount of pressure. "_Away~_"

. The skin splits, a sparse line of red, superficial. It is like the first attempt of a self-harmer too nervous and jittery to inflict what is felt. Jim is concise, however, and knows the line is long enough to twirl about the hurricane in John. "_Hey, oh~_" he moves onto the pinky, repeating the act with more strength. Red bubbles out and the salt and pepper-haired man catches the inside of his lower lip, biting down to withhold a verbal response. From the force, Jim can tell the teeth are incising into the flesh, soon to draw blood if.. ah!,_there_ it is. That is the key. He repeats the action with the scalpel and shakes his head. The man is doing more damage to himself than he is!  
. This is all decorative. The Virgin is coming tonight and it would be a shame if Johnnyboy looked swell enough to not be fretted over. Already Jim has been ripping open the worn and half-conscious man before him for a good hour or two. It's all sorts of dirty work, but such deeds must be performed. John has been keeping a stiff upper lip thus far, but the black haired man knows it can't last any longer, not without the steady morphine drip now taken away.  
. Jim presses the sharpened tip into the back of John's hand and is surprised when, scant seconds later, a tremble shakes the restrained man's frame. Blinking curiously, Jim glances up to see eyes shut and a furrowed brow, a rivulet of blood winding its way down the terse lines of a closed face. John must think it's enough to suffocate his quieted sobs, drown the risk of a permanent silence that will eventually deafen him.

. "Oh Johnnyboy," Jim coos, pressing the barest bit of the scalpel into the man's hand and widening his eyes in mock surprise at the earthquake consuming John. "You know how He is. Bored easily. Of eeeveeeerything~ People. Things. Hobbies." A singsong tone enters his voice as he pushes the blade in carefully, deeper. "Dogs, too." Jim looks down at his work, inspecting the angle and location as John's hand is steadily doused in red. The other male is speaking, but he tunes him out over another bout of humming. "He wouldn't replace you, though. Too much of one thing does get _dreadfully dull_ and boring, darling. Oh! There it is again, **that** word. _Bo-o-o-o-ring~!_Well, except for maybe one thing He's known to enjoy. No, no, she don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie.."

. The background talking of John's turns into vicious screaming as Jim hears the scalpel tip scratch against the bed cover. The dark-haired man trains his brown doe eyes on the flattened, impaled hand and releases the handle of a blade with a twist. Their session is over. The noises coming out of John are too inhuman to even pretend to comprehend, so Jim smiles at him so endearingly, kindly. Someone will come in and patch up the man, but it doesn't sit well with Jim to just.. _leave_ without saying anything.  
Leaning in close, lips brushing across the restrained man's cheek to his earlobe, Jim whispers words with a sinfully casual tone. Words that cause John to inhale the pollution of time lost and cough out ragged hope, tears unabated. John, he knows, is savouring this final taste of almost.

"**_He_** loves you."

* * *

. A sharp clang rings out across the small room. The heart monitor throws out another steady beat to contend with the new noise. Jim chews contentedly on mint gum, dark brown eyes catching the black-coated figure pointing a gun at him. He reciprocates and stands, waving his own glock in the air as though it were a competition to show off their respective weapons.

"You've been away so _loooong_," Jim croons, speaking in a blithe voice. It is a habit to take the morose and solemn and then wrap it into a tone that implies nothing more than taking part in a barely interesting pastime.

There is a familiar tightness in His jaw. The accustomed sarcasm whips out at Jim, but it does not catch him off-guard. The Virgin has been away from the game too long; it is His rustiness costing the deduction of the first few points. Jim makes a dull display of pointing the gun at John, who stares in a mixture of abstract longing and solidified terror for Him. The Virgin takes verbal shots at the criminal, and it is a testament to Jim's composure how slickly he treats the whole ordeal, his free hand stuffed into his pocket to further emphasise how plain it all is. He nods along to the tempo of His words and tosses in rigourous eye-rolling where needed, but what The Virgin says is not new.

"You dying types," Jim murmurs, yawning and raising his eyebrows at The Virgin. "Don't you ever have anything better to do? Actually, you are rather enjoyable to watch in your own ironic endeavors."

. The Virgin moves forward, edging His way towards Johnnyboy. It's a pathetic stutter on His part, but Jim permits it, even smirking at the movements. The Virgin grins in return, gun never wavering on its target, and soon enough He is at the foot of John's red stained bed. It cannot last, though, and Jim waits until the crucial moment. The Virgin begins to speak, to try and flaunt His reasoning on their show-off. It's a distraction, Jim knows, and acts if he doesn't notice His hand reaching toward His pet's exposed flesh, to comfort, to sooth.  
. Jim pretends he doesn't know the words, such pretty syllables, about to dribble from John's mouth like blood had earlier. Mostly, he goes about it as if he isn't going to stop it from occurring, the things John always wanted to say but never got to, the final closure of physical contact and closure The Virgin wanted to lather His dog with.

It's not a surprise they don't see it coming, either. For all the genius in the world He has, He still misses the chronic failure of a beat.

A lacklustre click, a lifeless grinding of metal.

. The bullet fires as John begins the first of three words, three syllables. Before the bullet whirls through, John recalls the flutter of a black coat, the softly coarse feel of a blue scarf, pink fingers, the smell of chemicals and tea steeped for too long, but with a rich enough flavour to bypass the imperfections. John remembers three years past, walking down the pavement, the bustle of London stomping out their needless excuses for finger brushes, comfortable, at last content, finally blissful. It is enough to relive that moment, to see the memory brighten in His widened eyes. _'This doesn't work, does it?' _John knows He understands, _'That you won't be here and I can't be there.'  
_. When the bullet connects, John looks only at Him, eyes capturing their final moments, the realisation of a loss lied and now turned about. One more miracle is something both knew as a lost but treasured dream. The heated metal tears into his skull, digging deep as blood splurts from the open cavity. John's memories do not spill out, his final words lost and painted onto the wall with bits of brain matter and bone fragments. John does not hear the savage cry open His lips, split His lungs. One sputter of a heartbeat, one last bell ringing on the other side, and he is gone. The Virgin's calls prematurely fade in a blackened mind. _'I love you'_never comes, and He is left terribly alone.

. Jim grimaces at the mess, but reacts lithely as his arm swings to point at Him. Another pull and another. The bullets shred into The Virgin's chest, one shot barely missing His lower neck. A rumble of pain accompanies the tall man as He collapses onto the floor, heaving out snarls and gasps between spasms of deeply wrought and wholly unique agony.  
. All of it stops soon enough. Jim is left behind to study the blank wall before him, projecting a wealth of unbidden emotions upon the crème coloured material. The lines on his expressive face deepen, expand, and his throat constricts uncomfortably. No more distractions. Nothing left for him but what he has had for so long, what he has never found solace in. Pure absence, so close he felt the hush of it against the nape of his neck; incredibly near, scuffing the back of his shoes despite precarious side-steps. This is solely him.  
. Jim rubs the pad of his thumb against the warmed metal in his palm and lifts it until it is experimentally placed under his chin with a wondrous acute tilt. His finger is light upon the trigger, dainty in its slight twitches. _'I can't..'_ his mind begins anew, though reaches no resolution again as a sickening scraping noise forces his eyes downward. The Virgin is still barely alive with only seconds left; despite the disturbing tremours coursing into His hands and the arteries spurting valuable pints to waste upon the floor, He is able enough. His free hand labours and grasps onto the fading warmth of John's hand. The barrel of the handgun aims on Jim, squarely at his head, and The Virgin shakes His head.

"That wouldn't be convenient enough for you," The Virgin rasps through His sliver of a voice. "Let me."

. A spasm threaded its way through Jim's back, a gleeful arching of the spine in euphoria, a feeling never to be replicated often enough to perpetuate excuses to stay alive. The fine ashes are brushed away as the trigger is pulled and Jim closed his eyes, grateful. A sharp pinch and a twisted nerve later, a suit-clad body tips over, meeting the floor with the token grace of no control. A unison inhale crashes between two corpses. The room covers over the absence with the droning of a flat line, the steady droplets of no more.


End file.
